Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) - A Movie Review by Andrew Lawrence

Source: http://americanlivewire.com/2014-04-07-captain-america-the-winter-soldier-tops-weekend-box-office-continuing-marvels-streak/

Director: Anthony and Joe Russo

Writers: Christopher Marcus, Stephen McFeely

Stars: Chris Evens, Scarlet Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Redford, Anthony Mackie

Trailer link

IMDb page

Having a lot of making up to do:

I am just going to come right out and say it: I do not like the Marvel cinematic universe very much. I trashed Iron Man 3 to bits when I reviewed it a year ago, and since then, my opinion of these super hero movies have not changed a lot. The fiasco that was Thor 2: The Dark World did not exactly do the genre any favours, and with that in mind, I had very little to no hope that Cap 2 was gonna be any different, despite its stellar cast and overwhelming popularity. As it turns out however, Captain America: The Sinter Soldier is not just a good action movie in itself, but the best Marvel film since the first Iron Man. Who would have thought. 

Layers like ogres:

In my opinion, the second film about Steve Rogers and his spandex suit might be the deepest of the Marvel movies thus far. Themes such as freedom versus fear and surveillance versus trust are constantly brought up and discussed, and even though the film's huge amount of action sequences kind of muddies them a bit, these ethical dilemmas are constantly an issue that Cap and his buddies have to deal with. Unlike the first movie, the second Captain America film is successfully selfaware and reflective on behalf of America itself, and I think the writers did a good job of portraying the corruption that sometimes comes with great power, at least for a while. Several of these themes and other plot lines do begin to step on each others toes at some point however, but from a Marvel film, this should not come a huge surprise to anyone. 

So many A-list actors, what do we do?!:

In terms of believable characters, this film has more than enough. Marvel has always been successful at casting really great actors and actresses in their leading roles, and with Sam Jackson, Scarlet Johansson, Anthony Mackie, Robert Redford and Luke Evens himself, this films is not an exception. All of these guys did a good job at delivering their surprisingly smart and snappy dialogue all throughout the movie, and I was surprised by how much Johansson's and Jackson's characters in particular were allowed to grow. I am not going to name the actor who played the winter soldier himself in fear of spoiling one of the movie's main mysteries for the few people who have not figured it out himself, but I am going to discuss the character itself for a while. 

The winter soldier:

Ironically, this guy is both my favourite and least favourite part of the whole film. Someone must have been watching The Terminator when they came up with the characteristics of this villain, because for about 90 minutes, he was almost as menacing, mysterious, brutal and interesting as Arnold has ever been. Lore wise I knew who he was as soon as I heard the title of the movie, but the way in which he is thematically displayed and used as a link between the past and the present felt very convincing to me, and small things such as his costume and theme music made him one of the best Marvel characters, not just villains, that I have seen so far. He is also massively misused however, and when the movie's main revelation takes place and the big baddies finally step out of the shadows, the winter soldier as a character kind of falls in the background. He was the most interesting aspect of this film by far, and the fact that some ludicrous 70-year-conspiracy pushed him out of the lime light two thirds into the film made the character feel somewhat wasted. 

Lots of good, bits of bad:

As a whole, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a refreshingly enjoyable and interesting action movie, and it has successfully revived a good amount of my appreciation for the super hero genre. I for once never felt bored by the action sequences and found myself enjoying the spectacle and admiring the good aspects instead of brooding over the bad stuff, and for a good 90 to 100 minutes, I though Captain America was going to overthrow Iron Man and make this the best Marvel film to date. As previously mention however, I personally felt that the best element of the film was pushed aside to make room for a far less engaging and fathomable one, which is too bad considering how invested I had gotten in the story and its characters up until that point. Still, watching Captain America: The Winter Soldier was a very fun and rewarding experience, and it has firmly earned its status as the best sequel in the Marcel cinematic universe so far.